


Sidewalk Conversations

by immen_sity



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode Fix-it, Episode: s22e04 Sightless in a Savage Land, F/M, Feels, Fix-It, Heart-to-Heart, Hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:08:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28630794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immen_sity/pseuds/immen_sity
Summary: Rafael and Olivia bump into each other outside the bar and address the elephant(s) in the room.Fix-it for 22x4 Sightless in a Savage Land.
Relationships: Rafael Barba & Olivia Benson, Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88





	Sidewalk Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> here is my attempt at a Barson fix-it for 22x4 Sightless in a Savage Land, which i threw together in a couple of hours while trying to process the episode. it's all still an emotional blur to me, but i'm so happy to see Raúl back on SVU and hope he returns again in the future! 
> 
> i was playing around with a few ideas, and may attempt another less angsty version if time permits. i think this episode had many moments to play with, but due to school commitments i couldn’t rework the WHOLE episode in this ficlet, so i chose to zoom in on the conversation at the end! 
> 
> say hi on twitter @immen_sity if you wanna chat about the episode!
> 
> UPDATE (9/1): i've had some time to stew in my emotions, and my thoughts on the episode have changed slightly, so i may give this another shot if i can find the time this weekend (i'm also working on Leave No Trace Behind, which is taking up my time now), because i'm not entirely satisfied with this one. if i manage to write a second fix-it, i'll add it as a second chapter here and leave this one here.

The cold winter air slapped Olivia’s face as she walked the three blocks to the bar where she was sure the rest of the squad - and Barba - were two drinks in already.

There still was time to turn back; to avoid the smiling faces of her friends and pretend their joy didn't make her eyes sting. Fin had probably proposed to Phoebe by now; there was no doubt in her mind that she'd said yes (the passionate kiss they'd shared in the middle of the squad room on New Year's Day was enough of a sign). She also was positive that Amanda and Sonny had enjoyed their quiet weekend with Jesse and Billie, and judging by the spring in Kat's step, she'd finally had time for a romantic New Year's weekend with the mystery woman on her phone's lock screen. She chastised herself for the bitter jealousy that burned in her chest - nothing else in the world could possibly matter more than Noah, and usually it was more than enough for her - but stewed in it as she exited the subway station, legs like lead beneath her.

And Barba. Where even to begin with him?

It'd been naive of her to assume that he'd cut a deal with Carisi and leave it at that. Him representing Davis wasn't a stretch. She and Fin had laid out the entire situation for him at the diner - hypothetical or not, it practically was an invitation to get invested in the case. She knew better than anyone else that he was looking into defense work, having called that very meeting because of that fact.

So why did the sight of him, freshly shaven and impeccably dressed as always, standing in the courtroom before her, shake her to the core?

She stuffed her fists into the pockets of her coat to shield them from the cold - a bitter chill not unlike that fateful February afternoon nearly three years ago - and blinked away the hot tears that were forming in her eyes.

All that time she'd secretly hung on to the hope, as naive as it sometimes seemed, that he would someday stop gallivanting across the United States and rejoin the DA's office - that she would stroll into 1 Hogan Place to find him at his desk, or stand by her side outside the interrogation room, fingers so close that they almost touched. Seeing him stare Carisi down from his seat in the courtroom - a spot she always associated with the unscrupulous machinations of the likes of Randy Dworkin and John Buchanan, on the opposite side she sat on - made her realise that her hope had well and truly been obliterated. It'd persisted all through his extended vacation in Miami, solo road trip to California, the Iowa primary and even the worst of the lockdown, but only now did a sense of crushing disappointment truly hit her. Nobody worked with her like he did, and she'd resigned herself to the reality that no other ADA would never capture her heart in the same way.

She couldn't even bring herself to call him by his first name, choosing instead to revert to the impersonal politeness of "Barba" - a word that pained her as it glided off her tongue. The casual affection of months of video calls, texts and emails all through lockdown - a friendship she thought had _finally_ transcended the boundaries of their jobs - extinguished in days from the moment she'd met him with Fin in that diner. "Rafael" was the person she once trusted with her life and deepest secrets; the one who he turned to for strength in the courtroom. "Rafael" _wasn't_ the man who'd stood before her the last few days, their conversations stilted and antagonistic.

The Rafa she'd come to know, and even love, now was Defense Attorney Rafael Barba - words she still couldn't bring herself to say out loud. Her best friend had finally returned to her squad room after three long years, but the emotional distance between them had suddenly increased tenfold, and there was nothing she could do about it.

The bar came into view and she promised herself she'd stay for one drink. One drink - and then home to Noah, where the promise of gleeful laughter and children's television would remind her that it now was the only thing that was untainted by the crushing heaviness of her job. She cursed under her breath when she spotted the freshly-shaven attorney a few feet away, footsteps brisk and intentional. _Keep it casual and fast, Olivia,_ she thought to herself, although her shaking knees told her that it was a tall order.

“Hey, did I miss the post-mortem?” she asked, careful to keep her tone business-like and emotionless.

“No, they’re still inside," he replied equally matter-of-factly. She quickly turned her head in the direction of the bar, unable to look into his eyes for too long - the weight of his unspoken words from the day they'd departed still tore into her soul. This wasn't a discussion she wanted to have today, or maybe even ever.

"Hey. Walk with me?"

He wanted to talk to her? She didn't have time to hide the surprise on her face.

 _Shit_. Every bone in her body was screaming at her to walk away; to turn around and enter the bar she'd been dreading visiting just a minute ago to keep a lid on her emotions. But his green eyes flashed with warmth and familiarity, and she couldn't bring herself to turn him down.

"Sure." They turned the corner and she suddenly became sensitive to how close they were walking. It'd been so long since she last strolled down a city street with him, partly the fault of the pandemic - was this what things were like before the Householder trial? They'd never given it a second thought, and here she was now, agonising over whether standing a foot away from him was too close or far.

"Are you mad at me about how I handled this case?" he asked hesitantly, which flooded her head with memories of an eerily similar conversation they’d had in her office. 2017? 2018? She realised with a sinking heart that all these little details - ones she'd once catalogued so meticulously in her head - now were muddled in the recesses of her memory. 

_Are you upset with me?_

_No._

_Disenchanted?_

She wished she hadn't turned down his offer of drinks that day, because now that seemed like an impossibility. Back then, he'd clearly sought her approval; her assurance that things between them were okay. Was this the same? Or was he really just asking about the case?

She kept her guard up, and her tone clinical and objective. _Stick to the case_. "Davis confessed on the stand - what if they found him guilty of Man 1?"

"It's never gonna happen," he interjected, almost too quickly.

"Because you're so good?" she bit back sarcastically, which left him at a loss for words. Had she overstepped?, she wondered for a few seconds, although the smug looks he'd worn in the courtroom almost made her think that he'd deserved a dose of her venom. She conveniently ignored the fact that she'd be _praising_ him for his feistiness had he been sitting on the other side of the courtroom.

Adrenaline now coursing through her veins, Olivia stepped in front of him and they came to an awkward stop, eyes finally connecting. Cold sidewalk on a winter's day in the aftermath of a seismic trial - the parallels were uncanny. But this time, she wasn't going to let him destroy her heart with some flowery speech about colours.

"Barba, how much of this was about Davis... and how much of it was about _you_?"

There she went again with the "Barba". It hurt to say it, but not nearly as much by how unperturbed he seemed by it. Had he even thought about the brand-new gulf in their friendship at all?

He frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked, although she knew that he understood her perfectly well. His departure remained a sensitive topic, and she'd never thought to re-open that wound, until today.

"The way... that you had to leave. Maybe you weren't defending him. Maybe you were defending yourself."

Recognition and hurt flashed through his eyes - had she really just implied that he was being self-centred? - but all he managed was a wistful platitude. "Can't change the past."

"That's all you're going to say?" she pressed. This wasn't the Rafael Barba she knew - where was his fight; his unending desire to bite back when provoked? "You literally stood on the other side of the courtroom. That's a _huge_ leap."

He sighed in exasperated defeat. "I can't undo things, Liv. And I already told you - I didn't start out intending to take on this case. It just fell into my lap. And I did my best on it, and I lost, and now it's over. Can we just drop this?"

"You just went against our ADA in court and defended a man who killed someone, and you want to just _drop this_?"

"So you _are_ upset with me," he fired back, although his tone quickly softened a few seconds later. "Liv, I should have told you that I was taking on this case instead of letting Garland tell you. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about the way I handled the case..."

"This isn't just about the _fucking_ case," she snarled, to which he was visibly taken aback. "I can get over you not telling me you were taking this case; heck, I'll probably get over you working for the other side eventually, as much as it hurts for me to know that you're gone for good." She took a deep breath and let the words that'd weighed on her mind for the last couple of days spill out. "But you just waltz back into my squad room... and I wish things weren't this way. I keep thinking about the way things were before this, when we didn't have to tip-toe around each other and we could talk like regular friends. You want to just _drop_ this - but you didn't give me a chance to do that when you left me standing outside the courthouse three years ago! It took so long for us to move on from all that, and all of a sudden you come back to court and it's like we're back where we started again. What's happened to us? What happened to talking about things?"

He stared at her in shock and took a few seconds to compose himself. "I thought that _you_ wanted little to do with me, Liv. You don't even call me by my first name anymore," he pointed out indignantly, disappointment filling his voice. _So he had noticed._ "You sat down and interrogated me the instant I sat down in your office that day - I didn't even get a chance to talk to you."

She furrowed her eyebrows. "What could you possibly have wanted to talk about?"

He stared at his hands and sighed deeply. "I just wanted to _talk_ , Liv. Reminisce, like Garland said. Talk about the old days. Laugh with you. We used to disagree all the time, but I always knew that our friendship was _more_ than that. It wasn't conditional on us agreeing on every single thing, and you know as well as I do that it's why we worked so well together. And now I just want that too. To feel like... whatever it is between us... is _more_ than just the case. That our friendship counts for something too, not just my job."

He looked at her sadly, but quickly averted eye contact - were those tears she saw? "But if you don't want that, Liv, I understand... I'll move on." He looked past her and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his coat. Was he going to walk away _again_ ? Leave her crying on the sidewalk _again_ ? Tell her that he was going to move on _for her sake_ and then disappear from her life until she chased after him?

 _No._ She wasn't going to let that happen. Not again.

"No. You have no idea how badly I want that, Rafael." It was the first time in ages that she'd spoken his name out loud, and she didn't miss his eyes light up when he heard the familiar lilt in her voice. "I miss it. And you," she finally admitted, voice cracking ever-so-slightly.

"Me too, Liv." He broke out into a soft smile and she instantly felt hope creep into her chest. "I've missed you too."

He took a step towards her; now they were face-to-face, noses almost touching, the end of his scarf brushing against the front of her jacket. His breath, laced with the scotch he'd probably just consumed, felt warm and comforting on her skin. She drank in the deep, piercing green of his eyes; the woodsiness of his Terre D'Hermes. It brought her back to the day he'd caught her in his arms in her office - the only person who could still her when the absence of her son almost completely undid her - and she allowed herself to luxuriate in his comfort.

"I should let you join the rest of the squad," he finally said, after a long silence. "They'll be wondering where you are."

"Yeah," she muttered, somewhat disappointedly, although she didn't want to hold him back. He looked like he had somewhere to go, and people were expecting her. "I'll see you around, hopefully." She didn't know when that would be, but she let herself smile for the first time that day, and turned back in the direction of the bar.

He tugged her arm as she walked away, and her breath caught. "Wait, Liv."

She turned around and looked at him expectantly.

"There's something else I want to ask you."

“What is it?”

"My mother's headed to Florida tomorrow and I have to help her pack, but I'm free after that, so... dinner? On me? Or takeout, I guess, since this virus isn't going away anytime soon."

She'd almost forgotten about the dinner he'd promised her on FaceTime, which promptly got cancelled when Governor Cuomo closed restaurants. It felt like a lifetime ago - a time without masks, social distancing, the general air of despair, or heck, Mickey Davis - but the warm smile on his face and vision of a return to normalcy instantly lifted her spirits.

"Yes, I'd love that," she beamed.

"Great. It's a date."

Her heart fluttered hearing that, just like it did the first time they'd met in the courthouse.

He grinned. "Oh, and one more thing."

"What now?"

"Things have been so hectic… I haven't had a chance to do _this_."

Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he reached for her and took her in his arms, wrapping them firmly around her back. She buried her face in his neck and let his warmth envelope her, skin tingling when it came into contact with his. She hadn't realised just how much she missed this; missed _him_.

"See you soon, Liv."

"See you soon, Rafa."

**Author's Note:**

> i'm really sorry if i got any details in the episode wrong - i did DVR and re-watch it, but put this together pretty quickly while my emotions were still fresh! i've never written a fix-it before, so i hope all this made sense.


End file.
